Jake raised his eyebrows and dared her to repeat it. “What’d you call me?”
“Daywanna!” She turned her nose upward and followed the failed monkey-thief’s suspected accomplice-guide through the gate.
Defeated, Jake walked after his wife and mumbled. “Daywanna, it is, then. Let’s check out the gardens.” His phone chimed, and as he lifted it from his pocket, he recognized his boss’ name. He placed the microphone against his cheek and tried to sound perky, but his tightening throat betrayed his anxiety. “Hello, Pierre.”
“Good afternoon. How goes the trip to the Taj Mahal?”
Jake judged the question sincere, but he sniffed Pierre Renard’s ulterior motive. After pleasantries, he expected his French boss to issue an order. “Not bad, other than a monkey trying to take my wallet. This place is impressive. Definitely worth the trip.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, and I’m happy to hear that one of my submarine commanders was able to match wits with a primate.”
“Enough monkeying around. I know you. You usually call for business only.”
“Right. Business. You won’t believe the opportunity that was just placed before me.”
Enjoying his vacation, Jake wanted to continue decompressing. His last mission had been an unwelcomed stressor since its unwanted inception, and he appreciated his time away from mercenary naval combat. “Do tell.”
“Not over the phone. Not even on an encrypted line.”
Jake grunted. “Cyber-security’s not my area of expertise. I’ll have to trust you.”
“I don’t trust the security of the cellular infrastructure in India, especially while my fleet’s parked in the dry docks of its nemesis.”
“Fair enough. When do you want me back?”
“I’ve chartered a flight for you and Linda from Agra to Karachi.”
Jake considered letting his wife continue her tour of India but remembered the growing risk of his position as the commanding officer of the submarine, Specter. As Renard’s man, he was becoming a renowned target for enemies the Frenchman had created during a lifetime of arms dealing, military advising, and naval strikes. He tried to hide his chagrin. “At what time?”
“You get one more hour to finish your tour of the Taj Mahal, but I want you eating dinner in Karachi. I’ll text the details to your guards.”
Glancing at the two veterans of the French Foreign Legion who served as his armed escorts, Jake considered his life a bizarre blend of parole and witness protection. The game was tiring him, and his heart sank as another ripple in the world’s unpredictable instability invaded his private life. “I’ll tell Linda.”
“Why do you sound so glum? I thought you lived for our adventures.”
“I do. But if that’s all I’m living for, isn’t that sad?”
“Come listen to the opportunity. Then you can answer that for yourself.”
Four hours later, Jake swallowed a mouthful of shredded beef while scanning the table’s other faces. His mercenary fleet’s leadership ignored him during the silent probing of their savory family-style meal. Anticipation consumed him, and he saw eagerness in his colleagues’ faces.
On his right, his French mechanical systems expert, Henri Lanier, sported a designer blazer and a head of impeccable silver hair. On the mechanic’s right, Terrance Cahill, commander of the fleet’s flagship Goliath, reached for cubed chicken with a lively jab of his fork. Jake attributed the Australian’s sparkle to his growing romance with an Israeli intelligence officer.
Liam Walker, Cahill’s second-in-command, sat by his countryman and appeared distant, seeming unsure how a frigate sailor should process the company of lifelong submarine officers. Beside Walker, Dmitry Volkov, commander of the Wraith, wiped an olive-oil based dressing from his short, graying beard. To Volkov’s right, his translator uttered a Russian phrase and then accepted a bowl of bulgur wheat from his comrade.
Between the translator and Jake sat the circular table’s primary occupant, Pierre Renard. The Frenchman sipped from his mineral water, lowered the glass, and then gazed at it with pensive eyes. As some unknown spark catalyzed his energy, color rose to his cheeks, and he nodded at the security team’s leader by the club’s main door.
Jake glanced around the empty officer’s club of the Karachi naval submarine base, which he assumed Renard had rented for this evening. The six bodyguards closed each door to the dining area, assuring the privacy of the mercenary fleet’s leadership.
Renard cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, I’m ready to share the news. Olivia McDonald has brought an opportunity to me, to us, that we must pursue.”
While the Russians exchanged words of translation, the fearless Australian commander challenged his boss. “Yeah, we got that part, mate. You said the CIA Sheila was working on something.”
Renard smirked and waggled a finger at Cahill. “No, my friend. Miss McDonald had been helping me arrange a different opportunity, one that now seems so… I wouldn’t say unimportant… perhaps, mundane, compared to the mission she’s just requested.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “Requested?”
The smile growing across Renard’s face was reminiscent of child in a candy store. “Yes. She requested. You see, it seems an American submarine may be stranded on the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz.”
Before he knew it, Jake was standing and looking down on Renard. A decade had passed since he’d last helped his countrymen, and he sensed his first chance to assist a United States submarine. “Seriously?”
“Jake, please sit.”
“Sorry.” He lowered himself into his chair. “It’s just…”
“I know. You smell opportunity beyond all our dreams. And for you specifically, redemption.”
Remaining silent, Jake shrugged.
“You have a good nose, but events are unfolding too quickly for me to negotiate any extra clemency at this time. We’ll do what we’re asked and trust the goodwill of our partners after the outcome.”
The dreamlike hope of a presidential pardon evaporated, but Jake knew his boss would arrange appropriate rewards for their fleet, and he embraced the chance to help his old team, the United States Navy. “What happened? What can we do?”
“Less than ten hours ago, the USS Indiana was struck by a lightweight torpedo in Iranian waters. Prior to being struck, the Indiana sent a message via a communications buoy that it would present its bow to the weapon and attempt to bottom the ship with the crew assembled in the engine room. American assets heard the explosion, but nobody’s found the Indiana yet.”
While Jake’s mind raced with questions, problems, and solutions, Cahill’s mouth let loose with carefree curiosity. “How in the hell did an American submarine let itself get hit?”
Renard shook his head. “That was my first question to Miss McDonald. Either she doesn’t know, or she won’t tell me.”
“Well it’s important, mate. Were the Iranians trying to sink it or weren’t they? Was it intentional or not? It makes a world of difference.”
“Indeed, it does. She told me to assume hostility on the part of the Iranians, but she had nothing more to say about it.”
With independent wealth granting him free time, Jake had developed a habit of reading international news, and he recalled a relevant situation. “Aren’t the Iranians involved in a peace settlement in Syria?”
Renard sipped his water and then lowered the glass. “Correct. And like all multinational negotiations, it is a complex matter. The Syrians must demonstrate a government-led ousting of ISIS, which will earn them a lifting of bans on their oil exports to the United States and Europe, which will create competition with other oil producers, such as Iran, which in turn demands its export markets are protected from Syrian expansion in the negotiations.”